BRIDGE: Pilipinx Outreach & Retention is a community program housed under the Student Recruitment & Retention Center. It was created in 1987 to address the decline in Filipinx students pursuing and finishing their higher education. BRIDGE continues to empower students through holistic support that honors the complex Filipinx identity.
BRIDGE reaches students at every stage of their educational journey. BRIDGE organizes the annual Pilipinx Youth Conference (PYC) to bring high school students onto campus, demystify higher education, and connect them with mentors and other peers. This conference is entirely student-led and student-run, creating opportunities for undergraduate students to develop their leadership skills. Furthermore, as students, they are uniquely empowered to transform our educational system through mentorship and become resources for the next generation. Youth, being mentored by students that look like them, realize that higher education is a place where they can belong and thrive in.
Your gift to BRIDGE will help sustain PYC and the many other services that give Filipinx students the network, resources, and sense of belonging they need to succeed at UC Davis and beyond.
Without revealing the theme just yet, PYC 2027 focuses on topics such as mental health, the inherent value and dignity of every human person, fostering genuine community, and unlocking unknown potential In today's day and age, there is an increasing competitiveness in pursuing higher education, and society is demanding hyper-productivity. Coupled with cultural pressures to achieve high-status pathways, it is easy to lose sight of our inherent worth. We then fall into a trap of seeking validation through our progress and prosperity: we think our value as a human person is contingent on the ways we benefit society. Living with this mindset is unsound because inevitable mistakes and failures will leave us with a broken self-image. Part of healing is being surrounded with people who want to bring the best out of us. Having people in our lives that can make us feel and know our worth helps us to understand who we are, and what we can be. This newfound understanding of the self derived from the love and power of others can help us realize what drives us– the desires contained within us. Knowing these desires is the pathway for us to become the revolutionaries we were destined to be.
Interested in learning more or getting involved? Contact us at [email protected] or connect with us on Instagram @ucd.bridge.